Texas Republican Rep. Steve Stockman is focusing on a number of conservative issues throughout his battle to unseat Sen. John Cornyn in the upcoming primary race. In a recent exclusive interview with the Western Center for Journalism, he elaborated on one cultural fight he feels it is important to win.

“Life speaks to the heart and soul of the character of a person,” he said, explaining the pro-life movement is a vital force for good in a nation that has increasingly devalued its most helpless citizens: the unborn.

“Before I became a Christian,” he recalled, “I was not pro-life.”

He said that outlook changed radically as he began to see the issue not only as a personal decision, but as a rudder directing the future of America as a whole.

“If you don’t have a passion … for the weakest in society,” he said, “that speaks to the nation.”

While the left is quick to castigate conservatives as unsympathetic toward a woman’s freedom of choice, Stockman echoed millions of Americans who “think of the person inside the womb [as having] a right to choose.”

Any unbiased scientific research, he said, will bolster the assertion that an unborn human is nonetheless every bit a human.

“People think it’s a glob or a mess,” he said, “but when you see the beating heart … how can you say it’s not a human being?”

He said the left’s hypocrisy on this issue is abundantly obvious within the environmental movement.

“We say an eagle is an eagle when it’s an egg; and you can go to jail for crushing an eagle egg,” he explained. “But you crush a child and nothing happens.”

Stockman, a principled conservative who has garnered significant Tea Party support, said he is dedicated to fighting for the liberties of all Americans if elected to the U.S. Senate.

“I’m for the civil rights of the unborn,” he said. “I’m pro-choice – I choose to let the child be alive.”